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cause and effect of american revolution
cause and effect of american revolution
the rise of revolutionary america
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The Enlightenment and Great Awakening was an intellectual movement where colonials were becoming antiauthoritarian, questioning authority, and the Puritan faith needed a more honorable society that had people who had a desire to be more Christian. Quoted by Rev. Jonathan Edwards a Puritan minister, “Sinners in the hands of an Angry God” is an emotional and descriptive explanation of how god will treat you if you do not repent, which opened the eyes of many colonials. More pilgrims, or people who wanted to separate from the Church of England, were beginning to question the authority given to them from England and whether it was fair or not. This was just the beginning to the unagreeable riots/wars and legislatorial acts pass that led to the American Revolution.
In 1763 George Grenville was the British Prime minister who used the army as an excuse to tax colonials. The first act passed by Grenville in 1764 was the Sugar Act was an external tax that cut taxes on farm molasses, raised tax on farm molasses, and put an import tax: wine, coffee, silk, and linens. The act required shipmasters to provide a list everything in their cargo to help crack down on smuggling. The other influential law passed by Grenville in 1764 was the Stamp Act. This internal tax required a revenue stamp to be placed on certain documents within the colonies. All commercial and legal documents like: license, newspapers, broadsides, pamphlets, and college diplomas required a stamp that could cost anywhere from half a penny to ten pounds depending on the importance of the document. March 1765 newspaper men began spreading the word of the wronging of the tax and by November the Boston Gazette printed a paper at an angle to make a point to the king that the taxing they were giving was wrong. Grenville had beyond started pissing the colonials off and this lead to riots and demonstrations in the import cities. Grenville actions influenced the birth of the Sons of Liberty, a secret mob society made up of artisans, mechanics, merchants, and sailors, who organized riots against their target and carried their action with minimal voice. Stamp collectors were getting beaten up, run out of town, or tarred and feathered by the Sons of Liberty. His actions also introduced the Stamp Act Congress which included all the colonials who wanted to petition the king.
The British government had to find a way to pay their war debt off, so they turned to the colonies of America. They began to tax the colonies very steeply, because the British government felt as the colonies must play their part in helping pay off the debt. The colonies opposed this idea, believing that because they did not start the war, and did not participate in all of the war that scaled the globe, they should not have to pay steep taxes to pay off the debt. This is where the idea of “No taxation without representation.” ,said by Reverend Jonathan Mayhew, began, because the colonist had no representation in parliament in order to oppose these tax acts. One act the British government passed was the Stamp Act which was passed in 1765, the stamp act used stamps on pieces of paper that came with products in order to show that the colonist had paid their taxes, this act came very sudden and shocked the colonist and they felt very negatively about this act because they felt if infringed on their liberties. The act birthed the Sons of Liberty, widely associated with Samuel Adams, this group began using violence and threats in order to scare tax collectors throughout the colonies. Popular methods of scare tactics include tarring and feathering tax collectors and hanging effigies of tax collectors in trees, as depicted by the Boston Gazette, a popular newspaper at the time, on the August
The American Revolution began for many reasons, some are; long-term social, economic, and political changes in the British colonies, prior to 1750 provided the basis for and started a course to America becoming an independent nation under it's own control with its own government. Not a tyrant king thousands of miles away. A huge factor in the start of the revolution was the French and Indian War during the years of 1754 through 1763; this changed the age-old bond between the colonies and Britain, its mother. To top it off, a decade of conflicts between the British rule and the colonists, starting with the Stamp Act in 1765 that eventually led to the eruption of war in 1775, along with the drafting of The Declaration of Independence in 1776.
Let us travel back before the Revolutionary War, to the start of the French and Indian War. This is the only way to understand the future of the American Colonies, and ultimately the causes of the American Revolution. After the war, Britain had emerged as the world’s leading power, however, Britain’s national debt tripled. In order to relieve the heavy burden, the British decided to tax the American Colonies. This taxation caused massive rebellion by the Americans, and ultimately warfare. Professor Breen, a historian well familiar with the revolution, claims that the American colonists were motived by a new form of protest called boycotting. Breen explains that the revolution was a consumer revolution driven not just by elite landowners, but by all American colonists. Degler on the other hand states that the revolution was not a consumer revolution, and was mostly controlled by the elite aristocracy. In my own opinion, the American Revolution was a war that represented a country seeking freedom and liberty. Despite the use of boycotting, the colonies were also using other methods besides economics to break away from Britain. Taking Breen and Degler into consideration, the American Revolution was both an economic and political revolution.
The connection between Britain and the English colonies was that of the ruling of the colonies by the king of Britain, King George III and his parliament. The king’s ruling was very unfavorable for the colonists because of his tyrannic dictatorship and unjustly taxations. The mere thought of an island ruling an entire continent thousands of miles away with poor communication and lack of supervision of the colonies by the king, did not work in favor of the colonies nor for Britain. Three contributing factors for the outbreak of the American Revolution were (1) the king’s taxes, (2) neglect of the 13 colonies and (3) England’s mercantilism policy. King George III and his decisions were one of the major causes that had the English colonists fumed with anger towards Britain and this eventually led to the American Revolution.
Most of the colonizers of America came from Britain and France whereby they fought for territory and power. Reasons why the colonizers wanted America were for self-government, religious sufferance, cheap land, and economic opportunity. Due to this, the Native American Indians sided with the French against the British for the strong colonies including North America. The war lasted for seven years where the British troops captured North America (Canada). A peace treaty was signed in Paris which led the French to lose everything, resulting in the American Indians not being able to trade. Moreover, the British government lost a lot of expenses due to the funding of war, and the colonialists had experience with long warfare with the ‘mentorship’ of the Britain troops. Since the colonists gained
From 1763, Americans had only to be convinced that an arbitrary ruler- whether Parliament or King-was violating their inherent rights, to feel that rebellion was justified. This conviction was bred in them by the series of events that occurred between 1763 and 1776. The language used to protest the British Acts was legal, and political. But the primary cause of the Revolution was economics. In theory the colonists accepted the principle that natural laws rather than royal decrees should govern the economy.
In October of 1765, the same year the act was passed, the Stamp Act Congress met with delegates from nine colonies and petitioned the King of England, along with the two houses of Parliament. This petition and reaction to the act became the first formal cry for reformation with regard to England’s control over America. In addition to the Stamp Act of 1765, other various taxations aroused a spirit of revolution in America. One year before the Stamp Act, the Sugar Act of 1764 lowered the duty on molasses and raised the duty on sugar. While this act was designed to raise money, the majority of the Americans did not view it as any different than traditional taxations. Another set of taxes, known as the Townshend Duties, taxed goods imported to the colonies from England. Townshend judged this to be more practical because the duty was on “external” goods (those imported to the country) rather than “internal” goods, which the Stamp Act had attempted to address.
The relationship between Britain and her Americans colonies slowly deteriorated between the 1750s and the beginning of the American Revolution. When the first British immigrants settled in America, the relationship of the colonies and their mother country was somewhat peaceful. In the following generations, however, their relationship became tenser as Britain imposed policies and taxes on unrepresented American colonists. The British believed they were right in doing so because they had large debts to pay from ongoing wars with France. These taxes caused uprisings among colonists which contributed to British occupation in America, leading to more rebellions. Eventually, the rift in the relationship between the colonists and the British led to the Revolutionary War and the formation of a new country.
The American Revolution was sparked by a myriad of causes. These causes in themselves could not have sparked such a massive rebellion in the nation, but as the problems of the colonies cumulated, their collective impact spilt over and the American Revolution ensued. Many say that this war could have been easily avoided and was poorly handled by both sides, British and American; but as one will see, the frame of thought of the colonists was poorly suited to accept British measures which sought to “overstep” it’s power in the Americas. Because of this mindset, colonists developed a deep resentment of British rule and policies; and as events culminated, there was no means to avoid revolution and no way to turn back.
For over a century Great Britain had ruled the colonies in America. Since the founding of the Chesapeake Bay colony in the south in 1607, and the Massachusetts Bay colony in the north in 1630, the colonies had relied on the crown for many of their needs. Over time the colonists established a social and economical system that was almost independent of the British Empire. In April of 1775, after many transgressions on both sides, the colonists decided that they no longer needed, or wanted the support, protection, and leadership of the country that founded them. There were many factors, both immediate, and longstanding that lead to the decision to fight for freedom from British rule.
One of the most powerful countries in the 18th century established colonies across the sea. Great Britain established 13 colonies in North America as other nation started joining the race to own more land, causing controversy between both France and Great Britain. Great Britain finished, winning the war but ended with so much debt. Great Britain looked for a way to pay of the debts by establishing taxes on the 13 colonies. With the amount of power Great Britain had over the colonies, people started to go against them. The Declaratory Act of 1766 show the amount of power Great Britain had is the main cause of the American Revolution occur.
Both the British and the American colonists contributed to causing the American Revolution. The war grew out of contempt: England’s contempt for the colonies and colonial contempt for British policies. A series of actions by the British eventually pushed the colonists over the edge and towards independence. The results of the war gave many citizens a new role in society while others, like slaves, felt no change at all. This paper will examine the specific causes and effects of the American Revolution.
The movements encouraged and led to an increase in free thinking while also questioning ideas of authoritative figures in both the government and church. The Great Awakening was a movement that suggested power to the individual and emotional expression with an understanding that you don’t need a minister to understand god. The Enlightenment was a movement which inspired the power of reasoning and also power of the individual. Both of these ideas generated questions in all forms of authority. This movement also held the strength of natural laws above the normal standard. The enlightenment 's idea of that things that cannot be explains are not miracles or laws of chance, that there was more at play. This idea challenged the church and the leaders of the Church of England. Another cause that came out of these two motions was that of the Great Awakening. More and more Christians denominations were starting to form. These new sects of the Christians church began questioning old puritan beliefs and traditions. The questions and causes that were a direct effects of these two movements really generated a rise in free and enlightened thinking. They ultimately led up to the American
The term ‘revolutionary’ has been defined as something ‘involving or causing a complete or dramatic change’. The American Revolution did just that, with the colonises demanding economic, social and political change. Never before had all the colonies risen up against the British colonial rule, demanding change.
Wars affect a country one way another, either for best or for the worst. The outcome of the war can change a country and the citizens of the country. The American Revolutionary was a war where the affect was tremendous. The American Revolution began in 1775 till 1783. The American Revolution is also known as the United States War of Independence. As soon as people left England to come to United States there was smell of revolution in the air. The revolutionary war was a way for the United States to make a statement and move forward as a country that wasn’t underneath the British rule. John Adams, the second prime minister of the United States explains how the American Revolution began when he says, “The Revolution was affected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people” . Adam basically means that everyone was thinking about the revolution and in their minds they were already there, wanting to break free from the British rule. Once everyone was against England the people were ready for war. The American Revolution started for many reasons, some of the few are; social, economic, and political changes. These changes provided America to be an independent country with its own government. The increase in strict laws and violent events made many Americans angry and that’s why the revolution began. The French and Indian war, taxes without representation, as well as the first continental congress. These are just some of the reasons that Americans wanted the revolution; there are many more causes that can be justified for this major event. Americans did not want to be ruled by the British who were thousands of miles away from them, they wanted to have control of their country and have their own laws....